- 27 Sep, 2020
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Death Penalty Should be Abolished
Now that you have explored the topic of capital punishment and conducted some preliminary research,
you are ready to complete Assignment 3—the research essay.
For Assignment 3, you are going to write a research essay that introduces capital punishment as a topic of
debate, summarizes an argument that opposes your position on the issue, and then presents an argument
for your position that attempts to persuade your readers to agree with you. All of these elements will be
integrated together to form one unified research essay.
The opening paragraph of your essay should introduce your reader to the topic of capital punishment and
both sides of the debate that surrounds it, setting up all elements of the body of your essay in a coherent
manner.
For the summary of an opposing argument, you will select the article written by W. James Antle III or the
article written by Kathleen Parker (these articles were included with the Assignment 1 instructions) and
summarize the article that disagrees with your position on the issue.
For your persuasive argument, you should present three specific reasons why you are either for or against
capital punishment and build your argument by writing one synthesized research paragraph for each of
these reasons. To develop each of these paragraphs, you must synthesize information from multiple
sources—at least two sources for each reason—to serve as supporting evidence. In addition to these three
paragraphs that focus on your supporting reasons, you should also include a transitional paragraph that
functions as an introduction to your argument and a concluding paragraph that wraps up the argument and
the essay as a whole effectively.
The sources that you use in this essay should be academically acceptable, and you must use a minimum of
six sources, with at least two sources from scholarly journals. All the sources that you use must be
acknowledged and cited in the APA style.
Outline for the Research Essay
In order to develop an essay that meets the requirements of the assignment, you must follow the outline
presented below:
Paragraph 1: Introduce capital punishment and both sides of the debate.
Paragraph 2: Introduce and summarize an opposing argument (Antle’s or Parker’s article).
Paragraph 3: Introduce your position and preview your three supporting reasons.
Paragraph 4: Present first reason, using synthesized support from multiple sources.
Paragraph 5: Present second reason, using synthesized support from multiple sources.
Paragraph 6: Present third reason, using synthesized support from multiple sources.
Paragraph 7: Conclude your argument and the essay as a whole.
APA References: On a new page at the end of the essay, present a list of APA reference citations for each
source that you’ve used in the essay. The citations should be presented in alphabetical order